.Soil pH is important for your soil, the health of your veggies. Your body’s pH is vital to you! Too much, too little are not fun. Acid forming foods drop you down. Alkalizing foods bring you up! Simplified, foods high in protein such as meat and cheese, and cereal products are acidifying. Fruits and veggies alkalize. If you are well, keep well. If not, shift your diet to get better sooner! In 1931, Dr Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize for proving that cancer cannot survive in an alkaline, oxygen-rich environment. Seriously, an acidic balance will decrease your body’s ability to absorb minerals and other nutrients, decrease the energy production in the cells, decrease its ability to repair damaged cells, decrease its ability to detoxify heavy metals, make tumor cells thrive, and make it more susceptible to fatigue and illness.

One site says: Experts recommend a diet of 30% acid forming foods and 70% alkaline forming foods to maintain health, or a diet of 20% acidic and 80% alkaline foods if you are trying to recover your health. Others contend that while this a good ratio for active people (exercise creates a lot of acid), less active people can handle a diet with a ratio of two parts alkaline to one part acid.

An odd little bit about this process is that it’s what the food does in your body that makes the difference. Meat is alkaline, but acidifies your body. Lemons and vinegars, are acidic, but alkalize your body!

The pH graph above will give you ideas which are best of all. In the top category, #10, it is all veggies, including that cute little radish, with one fruit – a Lemon! At #9, Avos rank high, along with celery and grapes. Nanas, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries are on the good side.

There are wonderful lists online with some that give the exact pH. See Medinat for example. Some rank the items listed, others alphabetize, but all will get you started. The lists include Fruits & Veggies, Nuts & Seeds, Beans/Peas, Grains, Seasonings/Dressings, Oils, Meat/Dairy, Beverages and others! Some specify Highly Acidic or Alkaline foods. That can be a quick help.

Several sites show these three lists, Extremely, Highly, and Moderately:

Take a good look. You may find some surprises! There are differences. For example, some bread is badder than other bread. Whole wheat is 1.8 acidic; white is 3.7. Sprouted grains are alkaline! White rice is 4.6, while brown rice is 5.12! If you gotta have your bread or rice, make the better choice if it is important to alkalize your body. In general, increase use of the more alkaline one. Comparing citruses, oranges don’t rank well because of all their sugar. Bananas and lots of fruits are high in sugar! See more about sugary fruits and combining them with healthy fats in smoothies.

There are contradictions about some foods on the net and right here on this page! Some sites put an asterisk by the item in question. Just make sure a good percentage of the foods you eat are for sure alkaline. How it affects YOU is what is important. If your health is at risk, choose the more dependable options. Here are foods that are questionable:

Salads may be high on your list! They can be loCal and delicious all year long. The general dressing recipe is to use an alkaline oil, citrus juice of your choice, a tad of sea salt (alkaline) plus the veggie or fruit of the day! Feel free to adjust these recipes to your needs or taste…

Surprisingly, stirring an alkaline hummus through a salad makes a great thick and creamy dressing

Holidays, special events & parties, traveling are vulnerable times when we often have more stress in our lives. Sometimes we just eat what we eat out of habit and how we did growing up with our family. Perhaps pop a list or small card, your own personal pocket guide, of your best choices and foods to avoid the most into your pocket, with your credit cards. Before you go out to eat, take a look at it to remind yourself. Ask your server if you can substitute one for the other. Choose places that generally serve more alkaline foods or take them with you to the potluck!

The Green Bean Connection newsletter started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. All three of Santa Barbara city community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

July is the PRIME HARVEST MONTH! June crops are mature, tomatoes are in full color! Plants are still vibrant! August is hot, after a hot July, and plants are slowing down. Harvest is slacking off, some plants are about to or already at a good time to allow seeding and seedsaving. Exceptions might be Winter Squash, Pumpkins. But July is the time for fresh eating harvests!

Tomatoes can be harvested when they are green or when they get the color you chose! Bend cherry toms backwards on their stems so you get the cap and stem. This keeps them from splitting open when they are plucked. Next year you can get seeds for non cracking varieties! O’ course, if they split, you absolutely must eat them on the spot so they don’t spoil! 🙂 No fridging! Keep toms at room temp. Pink tomatoes ripen to a better taste and red color if they are left at room temperature. They do not turn red in the refrigerator, and red tomatoes kept in the refrigerator lose their flavor. If you want a tom to ripen, place it in a paper bag with an apple. No problem freezing toms whole! Just remove the stem core. You can blanch them and remove the skins first, or not…your choice.

Cucumbers – no storing on the vine. Your plant thinks it’s done and stops producing. Cut, clip or carefully twist off while holding the vine. Probiotic pickle your cukes. University of California, Davis, says cukes are sensitive to temperatures below 50°F. They thrive and last longer at room temp. However, cucumbers, eggplant and peppers can be kept in the refrigerator for 1 to 3 days if they are used soon after removal from the refrigerator.

Sweet Peppers – depends on the pepper. Let them stay on the plant if you planted ones for pretty colors. Cut or clip them off so not to damage your plant. Only wash them right before you plan on eating them; wetness decreases storage time. Store in a cool area, or only 1 to 3 days in a plastic bag in the vegetable crisper of refrigerator, separate from fruit. Green peppers will usually stay fresh longer than orange or red peppers. Quick-freeze ones you won’t be using right away! Slice, dice, and freeze in baggies in the amounts you anticipate using in a stir fry or stew.

A note on Plumping up! Gardeners in hot regions will need to be especially patient with big bells, bells that change colors, and sweet roasting peppers. These tend to wait until the nights are longer and cooler in late summer before fruiting and plumping up. Gardeners growing these may want to plant banana peppers or sweet non-bells, which ripen earlier, in time to use with those bumper crops of tomatoes and basil. Some Peppers just need time on the plant to absorb nutrients and water and plump up their flesh, so pack your patience.

String Beans Harvest just about daily. If they bulge with seeds and start to dry, your plant thinks it’s done and stops producing. Pick, pick, pick! Get them to the fridge vegetable drawer. If you have too many at once or want some for after season use, cut them to bite size pieces or freeze whole! Put as many per bag as you will use for the kind of meal you will use them for. If for a stew you will feast on for several days, you may want a larger quantity bag.

Carrots Check the shoulders of your carrots to see if they are the size you are wanting. A big carrot is not necessarily tough and woody. If you want tender snacking types, pull while they are smaller. Water well the day before pulling. Dig down beside them to loosen them if necessary so they don’t break off in the ground. Carrots go limp if you leave them lying about. Cut the tops off to keep them fresh longer. Steam and eat the tops or compost them. Get your carrots cooled off in the fridge veggie drawer in a closed container with plenty of moisture, either wrapped in a damp towel or dunk them in cold water every couple of days if they’re stored that long. Be creative with your cuts if you freeze some. Go diagonal, rippled, cubed, curled, sticks, or even whole!

Summer Squash, Zucchini Harvest in self defense! They get BIG, FAST! Some of you came from big families and like stuffing and baking them and would never think of harvesting them until they are huge, lotsa bang for your buck! Others that have a family of 1, can’t possibly eat all that zuke, so harvest them quite small, fresh salad slicing size. The ridged types make pretty little star shaped slices! They like hanging out in the fridge, but not for long! They are more soft than carrots or peppers. Give away what you won’t use asap.

Lettuce can be harvested at just about any size, but ideally needs to be harvested before it bolts, puts up a stalk, or immediately after. Left longer, the plant dries, the leaves usually bitter. Leave it for seeds, or compost it. Lettuce can be harvested several ways. Eat the thinnings of a group you may have deliberately overplanted for micro greens! When it is at a size you like, pick lower leaves and take them to the kitchen immediately. Wash, spin dry if you have a spinner, put them in a bag in the fridge veggie drawer. Feast daily until they are gone, go harvest some more. If harvesting a bit at a time drives you nutty, give it a whack about 2 ” above the ground – above the first few leaves, and leave the root there. Good chance the root in the ground will regrow more lettuce if you keep the area moist! It won’t likely be as big as the original plant, but you will have more lettuce. Or pull that root and toss it in the compost. Plant more lettuce! Your choice. Take that lovely beauty home and process as usual. If your plant has bolted, take the whole plant and the leaves that are still good. If your plant has been well watered, the leaves may not be bitter.

Sweet Corn When the silks turn brown and you push your fingernail in a kernel and it squirts milky juice, it’s ready for harvest! It holds its sweetness only 2 to 5 days! Harvest early in the day, make speedy time to your fridge or the barbie because the sugars turn to starch very quickly! If you can’t eat them right away, pop them in the freezer, husks on! If you love tamales, use those husks to wrap them!

Melons Harvest sooner by placing ripening melons on upside down aluminum pie pans or cans to keep them off the damp soil. The reflected heat and light will help them ripen evenly and sooner than when they are shaded by foliage or up in the cooler air on a trellis. Watermelons lose their flavor and deep red color if they are stored for longer than 3 days in the refrigerator. If you can’t eat the big ones fast enough, plant smaller size varieties, like container types, or harvest as soon as possible. Uncut, store in a cool dry place, out of the sun up to a couple weeks. Cut melons should be in the fridge, an open container is fine. In general, melons prefer your countertop. Really, no storing melons. Just eat ’em!

OR! Make melon sorbet! Simplest recipe: one melon, juice of one lime, a few squirts of honey (some ppl use sugar) blend and freeze. Tasty and healthy on a hot day! Use an ice cream machine if you like. Variations might be a dusting of salt, syrup steeped with mint. Serve with fresh blackberries, blueberries, raspberries. Mmm…..

Potatoes are ready for digging two weeks after the plant flowers and later if you want them bigger! Wet up the soil until muddy, feel about for the smallest ones if you want new potatoes, or the biggest ones, leaving the new potatoes to get sizable for another harvest later yet. Store garlic, onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes in a well ventilated area in the pantry, a paper bag also works well. While growing, protect potatoes from light to avoid greening. Be sure they are covered with soil.

Okra! If your summer has been hot enough you got some! They must be harvested before they get tough. Letting them get bigger simply doesn’t pay. So look carefully daily for mature fruits and take ’em! I grow the burgundy and ruby types, slice them fresh over my salads. The slices make pretty little stars. Okra is most nutritious when it’s fresh. Very fresh. Eat okra within a few days of buying it. Store okra loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in the fridge veggie drawer.

Strawberries Pick them when they are red and vibrant looking! Don’t let them hang out on the plant where soil creatures or birds will nibble on them. Storing them is a little different. Quickly as possible, store fresh picked berries in a container lined with a paper towel or in a paper bag in the coldest part of your fridge. They will last about a week, but it’s more fun to eat them super juicy freshest!

The counter storage area should be away from direct sunlight to prevent produce from becoming too warm. And don’t put them in sealed plastic bags that don’t let them ripen and increase decay.

Per UC Davis: Refrigerated fruits and vegetables should be kept in perforated plastic bags in the produce drawers of the refrigerator. You can either purchase perforated plastic bags or make small holes with a sharp object in unperforated bags (about 20 pin holes per medium-size bag). Separate fruits from vegetables (use one drawer for each group) to minimize the detrimental effects of ethylene produced by the fruits on the vegetables. Use all refrigerated fruits and vegetables within a few days since longer storage results in loss of freshness, flavor and nutrition.

Your SECOND HARVEST is SEEDS! As July goes on or in August, when you or your plant are ready, let your very best plants produce but don’t harvest the fruits. Beans get lumpy with seeds and will dry completely. Let them dry on the vine for full nutrition from the mother plant. Let a cucumber yellow and dry. Let the corn cob dry and the kernels get hard. Cukes, peppers, melons, okra and squash are easy. Let cukes turn yellow, okra pods dry on the plant. Just remove the seeds and let them dry. Label the drying containers with date/year and name/variety! Tomatoes are a tiny bit of a process but not hard at all. See more!

Save enough seeds from your best plants for your own planting, for several rounds of planting across the next season, for replanting when there are losses, and some to give away or share at a seed swap. Keep the local race going.

Some seeds, like beans and sunflower, are food in themselves, or used as spices and seasonings, Cilantro/Coriander or pepper seeds. They may be pounded to colorful powders. Others are medicinal, like Calendula or used in teas like Chamomile. Many are so pretty in gift jars, as art, in necklaces or as talismans!

With veggies, give away or store what you can’t eat. Freezing is the simplest storage method. Cut veggies to the sizes you will use, put the quantity you will use in baggies, seal and freeze. Whole tomatoes, chopped peppers, beans, onions. If you need more than your freezer can hold, get into canning! Learn about it from a pro and do it right! Probiotic pickle your cukes and cabbages and anything else you want to! That is a super healthy option!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. All three of Santa Barbara’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

Broccoli may be the most nutritious of all the cole crops, which are among the most nutritious of all vegetables. Broccoli and cauliflower (and other members of the genus Brassica) contain very high levels of antioxidant and anticancer compounds. These nutrients typically are more concentrated in flower buds than in leaves, and that makes broccoli and cauliflower better sources of vitamins and nutrients than cole crops in which only the leaves are eaten. The anti-cancer properties of these vegetables are so well established that the American Cancer Society recommends that Americans increase their intake of broccoli and other cole crops. Recent studies have shown that broccoli sprouts may be even higher in important antioxidants than the mature broccoli heads. Other research has suggested that the compounds in broccoli and other Brassicas can protect the eyes against macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in older people. If you choose to eat broccoli leaves, you will find that there is significantly more vitamin A (16,000 IU per 100 grams) versus flower clusters – the heads (3,000 IU per 100 grams) or the stalks (400 IU per 100 grams).

Brocs LOVE recently manured ground. Well-drained, sandy loam soils rich in organic matter are ideal. Broccoli plants will grow in almost any soil but prefer a pH between 6.0 and 7.0 for optimum growth. A pH within this range will discourage clubroot disease and maximize nutrient availability.

Seedlings should be 8″-10″ apart with 30″-36″ between the rows. Broccoli yields and the size of broccoli heads are affected by plant spacing. The tighter the spacing the better the yields, but the broccoli heads will be smaller. If you intend to keep your plants for side shoots, plant taller varieties to the northmost so they won’t shade shorter summer plants you will soon be planting.

Mulch will help keep the ground cool and moist as well as reduce weed competition.

An even moisture supply is needed for broccoli transplants to become established and to produce good heads. Never let the seedbed dry out. In sandy soils this may require two to three waterings per day.

Put a ring of nitrogen around cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants, to grow bigger heads.

The center head produced by broccoli is always the largest. The secondary sprouts produce heads about the size of a silver dollar. Sidedressing with fertilizer can increase yields and size your side shoots.

Cool weather is essential once the flower heads start to form. It keeps growth steady.

Brocs are truly susceptible to aphids. Yuk. Grayish greenish soft little leggy things that blend right in with the side shoot florettes. If you snap your fingers on the side shoot, you will see the aphids go flying. Those side shoots I remove. If aphids are in curled leaves, I hold the leaf open and hose them away with a strong burst of water! Then I keep my eagle eyes on them, each day, checking to get rid of them before another colony forms.

Important planting tip:There are less aphids when you plant different varieties of brocs together!

Broccoli varieties vary considerably, tall, short, more heat tolerant or cold tolerant, some make tons of side shoots, small heads, large heads! For smaller heads, grow quick maturing varieties. Packman is the exception!

Cruiser58 days to harvest; tolerant of dry conditionsCalabrese58 – 80 days; Italian, large heads, many side shoots. Loves cool weather. Does best when transplanted outside mid-spring or late summer. Considered a spring variety. Disease resistant.DeCicco48 to 65 days; Italian heirloom, bountiful side shoots. Produces a good fall crop, considered a spring variety. Early, so smaller main heads.Green Comet 55 days; early; hybrid, 6” diameter head, very tolerant of diseases and weather stress. Heat tolerant.Green Goliath 60 days; heavy producer, tolerant of extremes. Prefers cool weather, considered a spring variety.Nutribud, per Island Seed & Feed, is the most nutritious per studies, having significant amounts of glutamine, one of the energy sources for our brains! Purple broccoli, in addition to this, contains anthocyanins which give it its colour. These have antioxidant effects, which are thought to lower the risk of some cancers and maintain a healthy urinary tract as well.Packman 53 days; early hybrid, 9” head! Excellent side-shoot production.Waltham 2985 days; late, cold resistant, prefers fall weather but has tolerance for late summer heat.

If you still want to plant broccoli now, January, be mindful of thedays to maturity, and when you think you will be wanting space to start your spring for summer plants. When it gets late in their season, cut lower foliage off so small summer plants can start under them while you are still harvesting your winter plants. The days to maturity on seed packs starts with when you put the seed in the soil. The days to maturity on transplants is from the time of transplant. And broccoli is notorious for uneven maturity, so you will often see a range of days to maturity, like DeCicco above. So don’t expect clockwork.

Harvest the main head while the buds are tight! Cut about 5” down the stem so fat side branches and larger side shoots will form. Cut at an angle so water will run off, not settle in the center and rot the central stalk.

The respiration rate of freshly harvested broccoli is very high, so get it in the fridge asap or it goes limp! It should not be stored with fruits, such as apples or pears, which produce substantial quantities of ethylene, because this gas accelerates yellowing of the buds.

Dying parts of the Brassica family of plants produce a poison that prevents the seeds of some plants from growing. Plants with small seeds, such as lettuce, are especially affected by the Brassica poison. A professor at the University of Connecticut says Brassica plants should be removed from the soil after they have produced their crop.

If you didn’t harvest your side shoots and your broccoli has gone to flower, harvest the flowers and sprinkle them over your salad, toss them in your stir fry for a little peppery flavor! You won’t get any more side shoots, but if you want seeds, leave the flowers, let the seeds come. Fine long little pods will form. Let them stay on the plant until dry, then harvest your seeds. Pop the pods, remove the seeds so no moisture will remain to rot them. This large species crosses easily though, so probably best to buy sure seeds unless you don’t mind mystery results!

The trick to producing excellent broccoli heads is to keep the broccoli plants growing at a strong steady pace. Top-dress the plants with compost or manure tea; or side-dress with blood-meal or fish emulsion; and water deeply. Repeat this process every 3-4 weeks until just before harvest! John Evans, of Palmer, Alaska, holds the world’s record for his 1993 35 lb (no typo) broc! He uses organic methods, including mycorrhizal fungi! And, yes, moose eat broccoli!